Merging communities is a lot like merging lanes on a highway: a smaller community joins the primary community, and they begin moving forward together.
Sometimes, when two user communities cover the same or related subject matter, they may wish to merge their communities. This can push their efforts forward in one direction and a combined community to be more successful.
Merger is in fact something Fandom staff recommend, as it avoids duplicate communities and results in much higher SEO value for the joined community — meaning that more people will read your work, and more editors will join your cause.
"Merging" is a misnomer
The term "merge" is misleading, as Fandom cannot push a button to make two communities suddenly become one community. This is because of the technical limitations of MediaWiki software, the unique way Fandom user tables are configured, and the fact that two communities may have pages with the same name but different content.
Therefore, the job of merging mostly falls upon users who armed with the tools of importing and exporting. .
When to merge
Merging active communities
The best reason to merge is when the active communities on multiple wikis realize that their work would be more organized and attract a larger number of readers and contributors if they were combined. In this case, both communities should discuss the merger thoroughly to form a consensus, making sure to advertise the discussions on both wikis so everyone involved has a chance to contribute ideas.
When there is a consensus that the merger should go through, users can begin merging the content as described below, or Fandom staff for technical assistance. If contacting staff, provide a link to the merger discussions. Mergers generally won't be considered unless it's obvious that both communities — and not merely one individual — are supportive of the change.
Research and approach
Check whether or not there are still active editors by looking at the last 30 days in Special:RecentChanges on the community. Use Special:ListUsers to find the most recent editors and/or admins on the "donor" wiki.
On small communities, the founder will usually be the only one with both bureaucrat and administrator (sysop) rights. Try to contact the founder, using their Message Wall or talk page.
If there are active admins, approach them politely about merging. Offer a friendly invitation to edit at the more active community, and let them know that it's possible to move articles and merge the projects so that everyone will have greater success. Always be diplomatic when discussing a community's work.
Telling people their project is inferior or pointless won't convince them to join you, but may drive them away from Fandom altogether.
Don't forget to start a similar discussion on the recipient wiki ("your" wiki), and make sure to personally invite active editors to the discussion.
Remember, both sides should be engaged in the process!
How to merge
Transfer content
If consensus has been formed by both communities to merge, or there have not been any active editors for a couple of months and the admins are agreeable or unresponsive, you may start merging content. As all communities share the same account data, if there is a small number of articles, transferring content can be done manually and does not take too much time.
You can move any articles from the community that was not selected to be the community URL to the wiki that will remain open using the following method:
- Use Special:Export on the community that will be closed and redirected to create XML pages with author and page history.
- Use Special:Import on the community being kept to import the XML (this requires admin rights).
See Help:Exporting pages for step-by-step instructions on this process. After importing, make sure to fix any broken file links, templates, or redirects; Special:SpecialPages has a list of maintenance reports to check after a merger.
If there are many articles, or if you need additional technical help, please contact staff first, or any local Wiki Manager of either merged community.
Contact Fandom
Inform Fandom staff that a community can be shut down. You can do this by leaving a message, which should include the following information:
- a request to merge.
- confirmation that there is community agreement for the merger, with links to any on-wiki discussions, or confirmation that there are no active editors and that you've tried to contact the founder.
- links to both the old and new community, making clear which is to be closed.
- confirmation that all of the content has been transferred from the smaller community into the one that is to stay open.
A staff member can then close down the inactive community and redirect its domain name to the new destination. The communities will now be under one sitename and URL. (Any redirected domain name can become the primary URL for the merged communities, if the users choose.)
See also
- Help:Merging pages (combine two or more pages on a given community)
- Start a new community (general information on community creation)
- Community Creation Policy (includes general policies about closing communities)
- Help:Adopting a community (try to resurrect a promising community project)
Further help and feedback
- Browse and search other help pages at Help:Contents
- Check Fandom Community Central for sources of further help and support
- Check Contacting Fandom for how to report any errors or unclear steps in this article